At a very basic level, the best thing that you can do is offer a child the time in a safe location for them to open up to you about what is going on, and for you to gauge what help they would like and how you can support them to talk to other and access help.

For some professional groups, of course, you will be the very person who can work with them in a much more intense way. To be able to talk to children about domestic abuse it is important to understand why a child finds it hard to disclose what is going on at home, and may never have spoken to anyone before. The main reasons for non-disclosure are: protection of either parent (abusing and non abusing), fear of sharing family secret or fear of further abuse by abuser.

The work that you do with a child may also enable others in the family (adult victims, siblings etc.) to also access help. However, by seeking, and then often receiving, help children (and others such as the parent who may also be a victim) can be at increased risk of further or more extreme abuse and this will be an important issue to consider. Some of the things to consider when supporting children living with parental domestic abuse include:

1. Do not under-estimate the importance of your first contact with a child, who will probably be distressed and frightened, and will have found it incredibly hard to ask for help. You may be the first person who they have ever talked to about what is going on at home.
2. Whether you only have a few minutes, or much longer, with a child, find somewhere quiet, where you will not be disturbed, to talk to the child. Listen carefully and give the child the time to tell you in their own words what happened. Sometimes, a child may find it easier to write or draw about what has happened and how they feel.
3. Reassure the child that they are not to blame.
4. Acknowledge that it must have been hard for the child to speak up and that they have been very brave.
5. Reinforce a basic but vital message that domestic abuse is wrong and that conflicts can be resolved by other means.
6. Show the child concern for the welfare, but keep calm and do not let the child see the extent of any distress, shock and anger.
7. Help a child (and maybe their mother) to put together a basic safety plan [see below] for what to do when the violence or abuse occurs again. The child’s safety is paramount.
8. Ask the child what they would like and what they would like you to do.
9. Try to have some information about what services are available in your area, and how to make contact / make a referral. Encourage a child to seek further support, particularly if your input can only be minimal.
10. Keep good records of your discussions with the child, including pictures, details of injuries and incidents etc.; such information may well be required by other agencies.
11. Be familiar with what legal or organisational guidance you may need to follow. Make sure you keep your Manager/Supervisor informed and seek their support (it may also be helpful to tell a child that this is what you will do and that this is usual practice). Consider what your own management, supervision and training needs might be.
12. Your responsibilities (and what you might hear) might make it difficult or impossible to promise complete confidentiality; once other agencies become involved it might also become very difficult for you to promise to keep the child informed about what is going on. Therefore, it will be important to clarify what your limits are in terms of what you can and can’t do, and facilitate the involvement of others who may be able to do more.
13. Encourage children and their mothers to talk to each other. This is a vital element of the support package that you can start to help a child access. Where mother and child are both involved, both parties (and of course other significantly affected family members such as siblings and grandparents) must be heard and involved in the assessment and in response, even if their needs are different.
14. Remember that, regardless of how you feel about the abuse that is occurring, a child may well still have strong feelings for the perpetrator of the abuse - “Do not assume that the child or young person will hate the abuser, it is likely that they will simply hate the behaviour” (London guidelines page 9). It will be important for you to be as non-judgmental as possible when talking to a child.

Safety plans

A very basic thing that you can do is to help a child (and maybe their mother or another adult) to develop a Safety Plan.

This is something that summarises for a child and their family what they can do when the violence and abuse occurs.

For example, a safety plan ensures that a child, or a family, can quickly access help or flee the abuse.

Examples of the types of things that can be included in a safety plan are: code words to use on the phone to alert someone else to the fact that you are in trouble; Phone numbers, emergency bag packed, money, credit cards, having petrol in the car.

Women’s Aid in England has provided the following guidance which could be applied to anyone living anywhere. › Go to the page